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Sauce

Sabayon Sauce

A sauce whisked from eggs, sugar, and sherry until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sabayon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and sherry, and mix well.

  3. Place the saucepan over a simmering burner.

  4. Whisk continuously until the eggs are cooked but not curdled.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Cooked gently while whisking, the proteins set into a light, thickened, foamy sauce.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the whisked foam as it cooks.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma, and thins the sauce to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Whisk continuously over gentle heat until the eggs are cooked but not curdled. Egg proteins set at around 70°C and above. If the heat is too high or whisking stops, the eggs scramble into lumps instead of thickening smoothly into a sauce. Constant motion spreads heat evenly and keeps the mixture uniform.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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